Quick, why was the CFL trending worldwide on Twitter Monday night? Was there a blockbuster trade, an unexpected firing, a massive free agency signing? Nope, nope and nope; instead, it was about a former Calgary Stampeders' defensive tackle, Dwayne Johnson. Johnson, better known as wrestler/actor "The Rock" these days, reflected on his less-than-stellar football career north of the border during Monday's broadcast of WWE RAW:

The key quote there from Mr. "I'll Keep Referring To Myself In The Third Person" Johnson comes at 0:41: "In 1995, The Rock was cut from the Canadian Football League. [crowd boos]. Now, do you have any idea how much you've got to suck to get cut from the Canadian Football League?"

Although that sparked plenty of derisive CFL commentary from WWE fans, there's nothing really wrong with this. Johnson seems mostly self-deprecating here, but he still does have a bit of a point: CFL players are obviously quite talented, and cracking this league is anything but easy, but getting cut from the CFL doesn't have a lot of cachet south of the border (and overall, making the CFL is less impressive than making the NFL). It's worth pointing out that Johnson was a pretty decent football player at one point, though; he won a national championship in college with the 1991 Miami Hurricanes (although he was injured partway through the year and was replaced by NFL legend Warren Sapp), and he did enough to catch on with the Stampeders for two months. Getting cut from the CFL certainly wasn't his finest moment, but it's worked out pretty well for him, leading to a very profitable wrestling career and movies ranging from the excellent (Get Smart) to the terrible (The Tooth Fairy). I doubt he'd have done as well if he'd managed to stick around the CFL longer.

It's notable that Johnson is only the latest wrestling connection to the CFL, though. Many CFL players went on to shine as wrestlers, including Ticat legend Angelo Mosca (decades before his cane fight with Joe Kapp, he famously beat the Iron Sheik for the Canadian championship in 1980, although the two seem to be on the same side these days), WCW/WWF star Lex Luger (briefly with Montreal), "Superstar" Billy Graham (Montreal), WCW and WWF star Bill Goldberg (who played for the WLAF's Sacramento Surge, which became the CFL's Sacramento Gold Miners; he also apparently had another brush with the CFL before returning to the NFL) and Ron Simmons (who also wrestled as "Faarooq Asad"), who played for the Ottawa Rough Riders in the 1980s.

Going back even further, Gene "Canada's Greatest Athlete" Kiniski played for the Edmonton Eskimos in the 1940s and 1950s, and Stu Hart (the legendary founder of Stampede Wrestling and father of Bret and Owen) played for the Eskimos in the 1930s. Bret Hart's turned into quite the prominent CFL fan in recent years, too. The CFL's not alone here, as plenty of wrestlers have come from other football leagues too, but on the balance, the league's done a lot to turn out future wrestlers. Wrestling fans may have taken some shots at the CFL in the wake of Johnson's comments, but really, they should be thankful; if he'd hung on with the Stampeders, who knows if we'd be able to smell what he's cooking these days?

Honestly, it seems more like he was making fun of himself than the CFL and as much as people like to deny it, we do generally only attract the mediocre players at best from the NFL.

OnTheIce
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 1:37 pm

The CFL is a second rate league. Let's stop being offended, accept the truth and just enjoy watching the league.

Freakinoldguy
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 5:16 pm

jeff744 wrote:

Honestly, it seems more like he was making fun of himself than the CFL and as much as people like to deny it, we do generally only attract the mediocre players at best from the NFL.

Ricky Williams

The players we attract from the states aren't mediocre, they're just not big enough, slow enough, arrogant enough or dumb enough for the NFL.

It's a different game and if the "Rock" got cut it was because he was one of the above mentioned things, besides every player who graduated from (and I use the term loosely) the "U" back then was either a gangbanger wannabe or hardened Miami street criminal.

CDN_PATRIOT
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 6:21 pm

OnTheIce wrote:

The CFL is a second rate league. Let's stop being offended, accept the truth and just enjoy watching the league.

Go tell that to the raid fans in Saskatchewan, the sellout crown in Winnipeg, or the Alouette faithful in Montreal. The CFL might not have big names like the NFL, but it's one hell of an exciting game, played my men who make less but have everything to prove. They play for the love of the game for the most part, not the millions that they're southern cousins get.

Being the huge football fan that I am, I love watching the gridiron of the NFL, but nothing really beats seeing a CFL kickoff return, or the long bomb passes made by the likes of Dunigan, Allen, Flutie, Calvillo, McManus, just to name a few.

I have nothing but pride for the CFL.

It's our game.

-J.

Freakinoldguy
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:02 pm

CDN_PATRIOT wrote:

Go tell that to the raid fans in Saskatchewan, the sellout crown in Winnipeg, or the Alouette faithful in Montreal. The CFL might not have big names like the NFL, but it's one hell of an exciting game, played my men who make less but have everything to prove. They play for the love of the game for the most part, not the millions that they're southern cousins get.-J.

The only thing we don't have is the NFL Films franchise using their clout and money to suck in fans by making the NFL into the most hyped thing since the Moon Landing.

Before the Goebbels of football came along the CFL paid better and drew alot of the top College players but as we all know:

Quote:

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it

.

And that's exactly what happened when they started the NFL is the Greatest propaganda campaign.

Thanos
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 9:22 pm

If you object to the CFL comment then you'll get really upset about what The Rock thinks about Canada (especially Toronto) in general (best comment at about 6:05) :

Take that, you motherCanuckers!

Hyack
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:02 pm

CDN_PATRIOT wrote:

I have nothing but pride for the CFL.

It's our game.

-J.

jeff744
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 12:19 am

CDN_PATRIOT wrote:

OnTheIce wrote:

The CFL is a second rate league. Let's stop being offended, accept the truth and just enjoy watching the league.

Go tell that to the raid fans in Saskatchewan, the sellout crown in Winnipeg, or the Alouette faithful in Montreal. The CFL might not have big names like the NFL, but it's one hell of an exciting game, played my men who make less but have everything to prove. They play for the love of the game for the most part, not the millions that they're southern cousins get.

Being the huge football fan that I am, I love watching the gridiron of the NFL, but nothing really beats seeing a CFL kickoff return, or the long bomb passes made by the likes of Dunigan, Allen, Flutie, Calvillo, McManus, just to name a few.

I have nothing but pride for the CFL.

It's our game.

-J.

I skill we are below the US, but that doesn't mean our game is worse. I have talked to a number of Americans, almost all prefer the FCFL because they find that it is faster paced and less commercialized. The CFL is actually gaining ground in the US again for shows and I believe they are showing something like 10 games a year with plans to expand if it succeeds (as far as I know, it has done quite well)

bootlegga
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 7:11 am

OnTheIce wrote:

The CFL is a second rate league. Let's stop being offended, accept the truth and just enjoy watching the league.

If by second rate, you mean the second best football league in the world, I guess you're correct, although I prefer the Canadian game to the US game, simply because ours focusses on passing while the US game tends towards rushing.

But the margin of skill in the two leagues is closer than most people think.

US colleges and universities churn out thousands of football players and the top 10% go to the NFL, while the next 10% go to the CFL. The issue is further obscured by the fact that each league looks for different types of players - the CFL focusses on speed while the NFL tends to prefer size, which is a byproduct of the twosets of rulles in games played in each league.

DanSC
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 9:08 am

I don't think any Major League Soccer fans get offended if someone says the MLS isn't on the same level as La Liga or the Premiership.

Freakinoldguy
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Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 1:36 pm

You're comparing apples to apples with your analogy. IIRC The MLS and the Premier Leagues are the same game played on the same size fields with the same rules and the same types of players, the only difference being that the MLS players aren't up to the skill level of the Premier league in most cases.

Our game is totally different:

Field Size;Team Size;Ball Size(ours is bigger); Number of Downs;Scrimmage;Fair Catches and punt returns;The motion rule;Time rules;Kicker advancing the ball rule;

and I could go on and on and on but I think you get the idea.

Our game is totally different from the NFL version, despite the fact that they both are called Football and both played by men in pads. Our game takes a completely different set of skills for a player to be successful.

Just because the NFL hype machine says they're the greatest game certainly doesn't make it a reality and if you don't believe me go ask people like Fred Belitnikoff, Marc Gastineau, Vince Feragamo, Andre Rison, Ricky Williams and yes even the Rock who were gonna come up here and tear it up yet ended up being dismal failures because our game isn't suited to their skill sets.

But on the other hand there have been a ton of CFL players who have gone onto stellar NFL careers, Warren Moon, Joe Kapp, Jeff Garcia, John Chick just to name a few.

So now maybe you can see why we get pissed when people call our League second rate and a minor league. A second rate minor league is NFL Europe or the Arena League, not the CFL.